A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding

by Jackie Copleton

  I looked at his poker face, made for neither deceit nor truth. I’d taught myself to hide my emotions over the years, while translating what a flicker of the mouth, an arch of the eyebrow, a tilt of the head meant in the faces of others, but his was an unreadable mask. I looked into those clear eyes of his. ‘I’m not a great believer in luck.’

  Pathos

  Mono-no-aware: A feeling of sympathetic pity aroused by the pathos of things. In its more technical sense, it refers to an element in experience or in artistic representation, evoking compassion, and/or to a capacity for appreciating such an element. Mono-no-aware constitutes reflective contemplation and aesthetic appreciation of natural beauty and human existence.

  Hideo arrived ten months after the wedding on a February morning filled with peach and lilac clouds. He was a gift of happiness for us all; a way for Kenzo and me to heal our relationship with Yuko after Chinatown. Watching her gently cradle him to her chest after he was born, I thought back to the time I had first held her in my arms. The midwife had passed me this wriggling, screaming, bloodied creature. I had never known such a mix of fear, joy and relief. Here was a tiny being wholly dependent on me but I had no idea how to be a mother. There was no example to follow, no parent of my own to go to for advice. I had stumbled along through motherhood, terrified when she gagged on milk, worried when I put her to sleep in her crib, concerned more by her silence than her cries. I had made that child so many promises: to love her, to shelter her, to fight for her. The fierceness of my love came as a shock. She was all that mattered. I looked for dangers everywhere, ready to attack any threat. I had felt that same raw animal need to protect Hideo, our crying, giggling, falling wonder. Yuko was good with Hideo, more relaxed than I had been with her, but still she felt the primitive fear experienced by mothers. We cannot help but imagine the hungry predator in wait outside our cave.

  ‘The rain is falling, soft drops that make the world seem clothed in wet silk. Hideo is asleep in his cot, fists scrunched in balls, eyelids flickering. What can he be dreaming of? What’s frightening him at so young an age? He fascinates me: his skin, those tiny feet, his blinking eyes, what does he see or feel? Joy? Fear? Dare I think of his future, what his life might bring? Shige and I chose the name Hideo. Excellent Man. Such a mature name for one so young, but none of us are old. I’m only eighteen, already a mother and soon to be a qualified nurse. Shige is twenty-three and a mining engineer. Sometimes when Hideo cries, I can’t stand the noise. I pick him up and pace, pace, pace around our home, anxiety rolling in my stomach. Shige takes Hideo from my arms, tells me to rest, tells me to eat, tells me he is proud of me. I can see how he cherishes this small life we have carved in the world. His happiness is infectious. He knows how to make me smile but sometimes the sadness does visit me. At night, when the house is still, or Hideo is feeding, I cannot help myself, I think of Jomei. I try to push what remains of him away, but the agony of his departure flares up, a salvo across the firmament of my mind. I tell myself Shige is the one here in the flesh by my side. But this love I have for him and for my child scares me in a different way. I have already lost one person I loved. What if I were to lose them too? The pain would be impossible. The thought leaves me breathless with fear. Today I listened to men on the wireless talk about the China Incident and I asked Father what will happen. He says, don’t worry, we will be safe. But soldiers are dying, our nation’s ambitions are killing them. More volunteers head overseas to do their duty, more young boys are drafted to active service. I pray our family will be spared. But why should we be? Why would God help us and not others?’

  I, too, look back and wonder: did we know where we were heading? The year of Yuko’s marriage, 1937, we entered into an undeclared war with China that raged from Manchuria in the north to the borders of French Indochina in the south. That August, our troops landed near Shanghai; by December they had entered Nanking, China’s capital. Kenzo would read the paper and frown. ‘China is too vast, however many troops we send. What will the West do? Sit back, smile and say, please, Japan, help yourself?’

  Nagasaki was the nearest major port to Shanghai and Japanese emigrants who had fled the fighting returned home through Dejima Wharf. So many came that the authorities had to set up white refugee tents at the train station. As the returnees waited for their new lives to begin beside the rail tracks, conscripts gathered alongside them ready to leave. Loved ones waved them off with flags and loud farewells on the long platforms. The boys and their families seemed thrilled and excited by the job at hand, the bettering of a nation. Even safe within our own island borders we were readying for the fight. The military police, the Kempeitai, warned people that speaking recklessly about military affairs would lead to punishment. New organisations came into force: the Civil Defence Headquarters based in the City Hall was established to prepare for air raids. The following year the National Mobilisation Act came into effect, commandeering factories and government budgets for war production and nationalising newspapers that told us of our successes. Rations were imposed on petrol, leather and coal. In 1939, as war broke out in Europe, we watched newsreels of Adolf Hitler address crowds, arms raised in salute. Wage controls came into force, the price of cigarettes rose, their names changed from the language of the enemy, Cherry and Golden Bat, to their Japanese equivalents, Sakura and Kinshi. The message was clear: not only our government, or our municipal leaders, but all of the Japanese people, even our young, were to unite in a great battle. In 1940, dance halls closed. By September, Japan had joined the Axis Pact, becoming an ally of Germany and Italy, and our forces entered French Indochina. In December, America banned the export of scrap iron to our shores; the next year, oil and steel joined the list. Authorities and the press talked about the Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere, which called for more space to ease our populated lands. Japan lacked natural resources, we needed more oil, rubber, tin and coal. Shige was sent increasingly to Gunkanjima, the coal-mining island off the coast of Nagasaki. The tower blocks and concrete walls made it look like a battleship sailing to war. Sometimes he would be gone for weeks. Between departures he and Yuko would take Hideo on a day out, building memories as a family, even if their son would be too young to remember them.

  ‘Yesterday, we drove to the Shimabara peninsula and went to a beach. Hideo clambered to his feet on the flat sand and grinned. We have named this look his naughty face. Suddenly he was off, half walking, half running his way to the water’s edge on those fat legs, his head bobbing from side to side. We ran after him and each took hold of one hand, lifting him up and then dropping his feet into the surf as he laughed. Later we cooked oysters on a fire, their sea juice spitting as we watched smoke flow from Mount Unzen. The volcano has not erupted since 1792 but still I stared at that black, smouldering peak, wary. As Shige packed this morning, he told me not to worry. The mine is safe, the work important, how else will we build ships or fuel homes? He kissed me, held me to him, told me he would be home soon enough. Now he is gone, and I’m alone again. I hate it when he is not here. I have Mother and Father, friends at the hospital if needed, but I miss the solidity of him. His presence keeps me calm, reminds me always of what happiness can be. I circle the date he says he will return, December 14, 1941.’

  But first came December 7 and two words changed the world: Pearl Harbor. The news came over the radio at around 9 a.m. I listened to Prime Minister Hideki Tojo telling us we would have to sacrifice everything for our country’s cause. ‘Our adversaries, boasting rich natural resources, aim at domination of the world. In order to annihilate this enemy and to construct an unshakeable new order of East Asia, we should anticipate a long war.’ The Battleship March blared out and I phoned Kenzo at his work, asked him what this would mean to us. He said Shige would be safe, his work on the domestic front was vital, there were other men to send abroad. In those first few months, our family seemed protected. Shige came and went to Gunkanjima as we watched neighbours’ boys receive their call-up papers. At first the ne
ws was astonishingly, perhaps unbelievably, good. Films were made of our great triumphs in Hawaii and Malay. We held lantern parades to celebrate and lines of people waited outside the cinema desperate to hear of more victories. In news reports our pilots stood proud and handsome in white mufflers as they drank their farewell cups of sake. ‘Banzai,’ the audience would shout, cheering in the dark. When footage flickered on captured enemy soldiers, humiliated in their surrender, we felt a quieter pride. The authorities described our forces as ‘invincible’ and our men were ‘military gods’. But we could not deny that these results seemed to come at terrible costs: many men never came home. And now we had the combined beast of America and Britain straining at the leash.

  At home we lauded our lost. Black streamers fluttered outside homes for a father, husband or son killed; placards declared here is a ‘house of honour’. We reminded ourselves that great courage was needed to win the war, not just from our soldiers, but from ordinary citizens. We followed the rules, put up air-raid curtains, handed over gold jewellery, bought more government bonds as every six months a new cabinet came to power. Metals were collected from Shinto shrines, ancient bells melted down, Christian graveyards and Buddhist temples were plundered, businesses stripped of rain troughs or window grilles. Even the hangers for mosquito nets were handed over.

  Early in 1942, the rations became more severe. Shops shut and the black market flourished. Women traded kimonos for rice. We called those grains our white silver. People in the streets began to look unkempt, harried, thinner than they had been. Instead of lessons, students carried out volunteer work. This was education enough for them, parents were assured. On excursions to nearby forests, they cut pine roots, which were turned into fuel. We lost more weight, shadows darkened under our eyes, stomachs growled their complaints. The euphoria of those first few months of dazzling success in the Pacific began to fade in our collective memories. In June came the Battle of Midway. US torpedo planes and dive-bombers destroyed four of our carriers and a cruiser. Kenzo shook his head. ‘We are too exposed, Amaterasu.’ Then one spring morning in 1944 Yuko was awoken by a knock in the dark just before the break of dawn.

  ‘A military affairs clerk stood at our door, with red call-up papers in his hand. He needed to speak with my husband. I stood in the shadows as the man told Shige he must report for officer training by 10 a.m.; it would be pointless to contest. An address would be forwarded to me. Shige had a class-A physical and his engineering skills were needed more now at the front. The man bowed and made his way to the next home on his list. We stood in our kitchen and Hideo, alerted by the noise, joined us. His hair was standing on end, a crease of cotton imprinted on his cheek. “Is it morning yet?” Shige picked him up and swung him around. “It’s a special day today. Help your mother make us a big feast to celebrate.” He went back upstairs to pack and I made red rice for breakfast. While he and Hideo ate, I went to Shige’s canvas bag and hid a senninbari I had made under the few possessions he planned to take. A thousand stitches on a belt, could they ward off bullets? The hours went too quickly and soon we were standing by the rail tracks and I was saying goodbye to my husband. “I’ll be back,” he said. “The training will only be for a few months. We can go to the beach when I return, eat okonomiyaki, get drunk on plum wine, give Hideo a brother or sister, what do you say?” I tried to smile but I felt as if he had taken hold of my heart and was squeezing it in his hand. Hideo did not understand what was happening but my tears brought on his own. Shige knelt down, whispered in his ear, “Look after your mother.” Then he left. I looked at my son, still too small, too vulnerable, and I thought, “How am I to look after you?” I’ve just found the envelope Shige must have hidden under our bedsheet before he left. I unfold his note and hold his words to my skin: “I promise you when this is over I will never leave you again.”’

  Three months later he did come back for ten precious days before he left for the front line. He seemed changed, harder, more distant. He was still Shige, yes, but a soldier now. While he and Hideo played in the park one day with a kite, Yuko and I watched them from the shade of a maple. She whispered of Shige’s late-night confessions, the prisoner he had been made to kill as proof he was ready to fight. He described the way his commanding officer had unsheathed his sword, scooped water on both sides of the blade and said, ‘This is how you do it.’ He remembered the officer’s anger when he realised his sword had been bent by the force of the cut. I asked Yuko why he would tell her this. She said, ‘He had no choice. I found him crying.’ Shocked, perhaps more by the tears, I looked at my son-in-law, who was unwinding string from a branch. ‘Did he do it?’ She looked at me, one sharp nod of the head. ‘He was following orders,’ I told her and we forced the conversation on. He shared one final goodbye with Yuko and Hideo, this time down by the harbour. More tears were shed, more promises spoken, more plans made for when he returned the next time. We never saw him again, but at least, at first, she had the comfort of his letters.

  ‘Hideo keeps asking where Shige has gone. He gets confused, asks if his daddy is back on the coal rock, his name for Gunkanjima. I explain Shige is a soldier now but he does not understand. Neither do I. His letters are jigsaw puzzles. I try to read what he really means in those cheery lines. He always sounds so light as if he, like a child, is playing at war. He writes of drinking bottles of Tiger beer on the boat that took him to his destination and the food they eat wherever he is stationed. “Honestly, lizard is delicious. Such pink meat, such a juicy taste, but tell Hideo, water buffalo is not good.” I showed some of the letters to Father to see if he can find clues. He looked at the map in his study and pointed at Burma. “He’s maybe here with the 15th Army. That would be good. He’ll be safe there. Wherever he is, don’t worry, Yuko. Your priority is Hideo now.” In December Yuko received a postcard from Shige with a printed list of statements. He had circled the most appropriate: I am very well, I am confident of victory, this fight is a noble one. Scribbled in his own hand, he wrote: ‘Be proud of me as I am of you. I think of you and Hideo always. The thought gives me strength.’

  Then six months went by and she heard nothing. No more letters, or postcards, no word from the military either. I told her she had to believe him alive until she was told otherwise. Communication lines were challenged by the fighting, yes, but surely, if he had been killed, she would have been informed by a telegram or a death notice. The newspapers were full of our men who had sacrificed themselves for our country. His name never appeared among them. But Yuko needed proof of life, some hint of Shige alive in the jungles or seas or prison camps. ‘He’s dead, he’s gone,’ she said, her body doubled over with the anguish of that thought. Those months of silence were filled with more military defeats, more hunger, growing fears of the enemy’s retribution if we failed. Decades later, reading Yuko’s diary, I learned this was when Sato returned: January 4, 1945.

  A Spirit

  Hitodama: According to folk belief, if the spirit of a dead person is not satisfied with the way it is treated by the bereaved family, it hovers around in graveyards at night in an effort to locate the right place for a peaceful settlement. The form it supposedly takes when travelling is a reddish, yellowy or bluish-white ball of fire with a tail.

  What to say of the moment you see a living ghost? The day was ordinary, the sun did not shine any brighter, the ward did not look any different, but in a heartbeat her world transformed and her fate was sealed. The shock coursed through her body, along quickening blood to eyes that doubted their vision, even her sanity, but Sato was no illusion. He stood surrounded by a group of nurses who were listening attentively as he dispensed instructions. I imagined the panic in her lungs, the strafing in her stomach, the scream in her mind when she recognised him. She waited for him to look up, but still he checked a clipboard and smiled at a patient and walked to a bedside.

  ‘He must see me. Had I grown so invisible? Was I so much changed? Finally he glanced up and stopped talking. Across the war
d we stood, only forty feet but eight years apart. I felt as if I was standing on a precipice, staring down into the waves below, the urge so strong to fall. Step back, Yuko, step back. One step and then another and more until I was out in the hospital grounds, my breath ragged, my heart so alive it might break free from my chest. I pushed past a screen of shrubs, walked over fallen branches and damp moss. I heard footsteps and the rustle of leaves behind, but I did not turn around. I kept going until I came to a clearing encased by trees. I waited for him to arrive, terrified and thrilled in near equal measure. I see him, standing in front of me as if we had never been apart. All that love, that desire, that pain floods over me. Here is Jomei. Not in my head. Here. I cannot speak at first, I can only stare. The mouth, the mole, his is such a cruel beauty. “Is it you?” He says nothing. I walk up to him. “Are you real?” I dare to touch him, hold my open palm to his chest. “You’ve been gone so long.” I lay my head against his shoulder, allow myself these few moments, and then I think of Shige. I tell myself to hold on to the smallest possibility he is still alive. I move away. “We cannot be the way we were. Do you understand?” He seems wounded by these words but not surprised. He cannot look at me when he speaks. “I had no idea you were a nurse. If I’d known, I’d . . .” He shakes his head and I close my eyes. When I open them he is gone. I listen to the sounds of the world beyond this cloak of trees. I hear a woman’s laughter, a rumble of traffic, signs of life. I say a prayer to my husband. Please, Shige, send word. Remind me I am still a wife. Tell me those vows still matter.’